With NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660 and GTX 650 threatening to make things messy in the sub-$250 market, and competitive pricing between NVIDIA partners with high-end SKUs, AMD is preparing yet another round of price cuts to its Radeon HD 7000 GPU series. Its last round followed the launch of GeForce GTX 660 Ti. According to the source, this is what AMD's lineup could look like, when it's done resetting prices:

Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition - starts at $430

Radeon HD 7970 standard - starts at $410

Radeon HD 7950 Boost - starts at $300

Radeon HD 7950 standard - starts at $290

Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition - starts at $240

Radeon HD 7850 2 GB - starts at $200

Some of these new prices have already taken effect in leading online stores. The new pricing sees "new and improved" SKUs such as the HD 7970 GHz Edition and HD 7950 Boost get closer to their respective standard SKUs. The Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition appears to have its price-tag trained on GeForce GTX 660. The Radeon HD 7850, on the other hand, could dig into the $150-$200 price range, which is yet to be addressed by NVIDIA's GeForce 600 family.

I never wait. I buy what I can, when I can, when I can use it, and I could use it since last month.

I won't be buying it, except to use for review purposes. I actually won't use the 7-series cards that I have already, in my gaming rig, until I get new ones for the testing rig, at which point I'll give my son the 6950's, and then use the three or four 7950's to game with.

I actualyl want two more cards; I ahve two for testing now, but I need to set up 2 rigs, one for memory reviews, that all use the same board, and one for motherboard testing, where the board and CPUs change.

I do one of each every week now, and being able to test two rigs at once would go a long way to increasing my productivity. Now, a day doesn't go by without my having put in at least 4 hours of work towards reviews, Sunday to Saturday.

I remember when AMD's 5k series came out, prices didn't drop for at least 1 year after initial release. But times have changed, and now Nvidia has plenty of firepower against AMD. The result? 3 price cuts for the 7k series since January
This is what competition does people, consumers win!!!

That is some very aggressive pricing. I wonder if this is to clear inventory if the 8000 series is going to stomp it into the ground like the 4000 series did to the 3000 series.

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I think it's a combo of many things. It's been on the market longer and the chips probably have comfortable-enough yields (all conservative...I've yet to see a 28nm part that can't hit at least 1050mhz with 1.163+ volts) to have hit saturation. While the red team has always placed themselves as a value-alternative, they seem to be openly accepting the match-ups nvidia has put forward as they have launched the kepler stack. It would be very odd if there wasn't some kind of plan, but regardless it's nice the consumer wins.

It appears popular skus are headed toward capturing key price-points because they may not be covered next gen vs the competing nvidia parts. ex: 8700 (or whatever places 7700) may not compete with 660, but rather 650ti/650, so they are preemptively matching 660 with the 7870 price knowing the upcoming series' will sit above and below 7850 (ie 150 and 200, 7850 somewhere between). Same with 7950 going after the 670 market for the 660ti price (I think 8800 will take on 660ti/680 for 660/670 cash). While the nvidia prices may adjust to AMD's and deflate, amd looks to be easing 7000 into new brackets to introduce 8000 while keeping 7000 relevant now and in that time of flux versus the competition.

€358 at mindfactory for a 7970 windforce x3...can't get much cheaper I guess.
I do hope the next series have the more expensive cards again, kinda sucks if a top model is that cheap. People want to show off aswell

I do hope the next series have the more expensive cards again, kinda sucks if a top model is that cheap. People want to show off aswell

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NOOOO!!!! I want uber cheap high-end cards... I don't wanna show off that I'm rich and I can buy almost any computer part. I wanna show off that I can play any game at uber high resolutions and uber high settings for card that's only worth $200 or something...

€358 at mindfactory for a 7970 windforce x3...can't get much cheaper I guess.
I do hope the next series have the more expensive cards again, kinda sucks if a top model is that cheap. People want to show off aswell